Scottish home for Panasonic’s first propane heat pump
21st January 2025
UK: A five-bedroom bungalow in Thurso, Scotland, is the first property in the UK to install Panasonic’s propane Aquarea 9kW M Series heat pump.
Homeowner and experienced installer, Ryan Pollard of RDI Renewables, replaced his outdated gas combi boiler to meet the high hot water demands of his family of five, while reducing the property’s carbon footprint.
While this is not the first Panasonic heat pump, the company introduced the smaller Aquarea L series on R290 in 2023, the M series is the company’s first large-capacity unit.
The Aquarea 9 kW M Series T-Cap monobloc air-to-water heat pump with Panasonic Smart and Service Cloud controls has also been linked to the third-party OpenEnergyMonitor electricity usage monitor. So far, the results are said to be very positive with a recording of a weekly SCOP average of 4.85.
As an experienced installer, Ryan Pollard has fitted Panasonic products for over 12 years and has seen how the technology has developed over this time.
“When looking for the ideal heating solution, the key factors we were considering were capacity and power due to the property having five bathrooms. Our current boiler was unsuitable for our 300m2 property, and as a result there was inadequate domestic hot water available to service the needs of our family.”
The Panasonic Aquarea M Series air-to-water heat pump has an operating range down to -20ºC and can operate at temperatures as low as -28°C with its T-CAP technology. It is said to be ideal for large domestic properties and has a 500 litre domestic hot water tank.
“The Panasonic M Series has so far enabled domestic water heating up to 68ºC, which delivers a 20% increase on the usable capacity,” Pollard said.
